Posted
by
samzenpuson Monday August 13, 2012 @12:31PM
from the mine-now dept.

ericjones12398 writes "On one hand, Amazon is not exactly short on patents themselves. The 'non-exhaustive list' on the company's site is a tidy little bundle of e-commerce IP, with a few questionable software patents — including a 1-click buying method, a Lodsys-baiting in-app purchasing method and a social networking patent, all of which have achieved a somewhat notorious reputation. Indeed, the last fiscal year was as significant for Amazon's litigation as for the company's behind-closed-doors acquisitions."

Journalists have done little to dispel the notion. Bloggers, OTOH, have done much to try to make themselves look like journalists. Often both sides succumb to their own bias, repeat memes as fact, and believe that they're somehow at war with a real or imagined foe. The corporate pressure to ally themselves with other corporate clients also instills a discipline onto the output of journalists, especially freelancers, by purchase of articles that when added together, ally a bias towards the publisher's customers. Truly free and unbiased journalism and research is wickedly difficult to come by these days.

Am I really the only one who sees this as a totally absurd number for any company? This should even be a big number for an entire country when it includes all the patents since they were introduced centuries ago.